tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61915654392308248992012-02-01T16:59:15.515-08:00Focusing on Polish and European population genetics and modern anthropology.Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.comBlogger541100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-2706687480791921502012-01-29T18:53:00.000-08:002012-01-29T18:54:20.046-08:00

The R1a1a Subclades Y-DNA project has some awesome maps. One of the most fascinating, I think, is the image showing the modern and pre-WWII spread of R1a1a1g2d, or R1a, Z280+, Z92+.Although most people in the project who carry this marker are of Northern Polish, Eastern German and Lithuanian descent, it's actually classified as a Baltic R1a subclade. There's good reason for that; it peaks in a

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-62880365270634744432012-01-23T04:53:00.000-08:002012-01-24T15:05:25.311-08:00

This is a continuation of my ChromoPainter analysis of Europeans from north of the Pyrenees, Alps and Balkans (see here). To obtain the most accurate results possible on my laptop, I increased the burn-ins and iterations in fineSTRUCTURE to 500K each (5 hour run in all, which is all I'm willing to put this machine through). The end product looks very similar to my initial analysis, in which I

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-14194378600644920662012-01-14T22:01:00.000-08:002012-02-01T16:59:15.794-08:00

I have some preliminary results from my intra-North Euro cluster analysis, using the new ChromoPainter tool. I tested more than 400 samples and 270K SNPs, in linkage mode, and then processed the data in fineSTRUCTURE at 200K burn-ins and iterations. Like I say, the results should be treated as preliminary, but they already look better than any other cluster analysis I've ever seen dealing with

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-15778257658064097772012-01-02T17:02:00.001-08:002012-01-06T18:39:10.296-08:00

An N1c1 enthusiast from Finland has just released a short paper titled "Structure of the Y-haplogroup N1c1 updated to 67 markers". As the title suggests, it's an update of an earlier analysis, using more markers and also newly discovered SNPs. From memory, this guy's a linguist, not a genetecist, but he's done a very nice job, so I think the work deserves a plug. It'll probably take months before

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-22068040209720601692011-12-01T18:34:00.000-08:002011-12-02T05:16:44.791-08:00

It appears the R1a phylogenetic tree is heading for a major shake up. The subclades are likely to be renamed. If so, most of the designations I've been using on my blogs won't be valid. For instance, the Polish-specific R1a1a1g2 is listed as R1a1a1h1a on the diagram below, which outlines the proposed changes to R1a1a phylogeny. The graphic comes from the R1a1a and Subclades Y-DNA Project, and is

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-73617876747943111832011-11-12T02:10:00.000-08:002011-11-15T05:09:07.518-08:00

Ten years ago, Passarino et al. released a paper focusing on the origins and spread of R1a1a (back then known as Eu19). They did this by studying the frequency and diversity of the 49a,f/TaqI haplotype 11, which appeared to be linked to R1a1a. The conclusion was that R1a1a most likely originated in present day Ukraine, and expanded from there into Europe and Asia. However, a couple years later,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-19503889964350586622011-11-10T00:45:00.000-08:002011-11-11T08:11:27.045-08:00

Slowly, but surely, the diversity of genome-wide SNP samples available to the public is increasing. One of the most interesting and valuable sets, released courtesy of the recently published Yunusbayev et al. study, comes from the Mordovian Republic, in the Russian Federation. It includes the results for 15 people from the closely related Erzya and Moksha ethnic groups (10 and 4 samples

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-36730646477328407732011-10-28T08:54:00.001-07:002011-10-29T21:34:34.671-07:00

I just read Dienekes' retort to my criticism of his work. Hilarious stuff...Actually, according to the PCA plot of the Yunusbayev et al. (2011) paper, they are transitional, being situated toward both the Balkans and the Caucasus, relative to Belorussians/Lithuanians, i.e., the populations that generally show peaks of East European-related components. This is also supported by the ADMIXTURE

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-30510285921521261742011-10-28T00:41:00.000-07:002011-10-28T06:13:44.533-07:00

Yesterday I blogged about a couple of newly discovered R1a1a SNPs that seemed to represent two major migration routes across Eurasia, one north of the Caspian Sea and the other south. These SNPs are Z280 and Z93 respectively, and I'll be watching how their story unfolds as new data comes in (see here). Meantime, I'd like to show how my theories gel with modern genome-wide autosomal DNA. Below is

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-71905868982105723682011-10-27T00:00:00.000-07:002011-10-28T06:17:25.904-07:00

A very coherent picture is emerging of the genetic history of Central and Eastern Europe, based on Y-DNA, autosomal DNA and craniofacial studies (see links below). One of the major discoveries has been the high diversity of the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1a in the Southern Baltic region, centered on modern-day Poland. This area harbors inflated frequencies of a number of R1a1a clades, defined by

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-18646465747099610662011-10-25T08:49:00.000-07:002011-10-25T19:10:52.973-07:00

There seems to be a lot of segment sharing between all of the different ethnic groups in the circum-Baltic area. This is obvious to anyone who's seen some stats from users at 23andMe. However, classifying the origins of these segments has been very difficult to date, because of a lack of "local" ancestry tools that differentiate between Northern European biogeographic zones. So what I thought I'd

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-11396597513774335432011-10-20T06:03:00.000-07:002011-10-29T21:35:04.690-07:00

A while back, Dienekes welcomed "peer review" of his work, which I thought was very commendable. I recently spotted a serious error in his analysis, and let him know about it over at his blog. I was hoping to see a correction, and also an admission that his methodology was faulty. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened to date, so I thought I'd describe the problem in detail here.In the blog entry

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-51764655844238854202011-10-07T19:10:00.001-07:002011-10-07T20:25:36.397-07:00

Two-rooted lower canines are rare in humans, but they are most commonly found in European populations, at levels of up to 9%. A new study reveals that this trait reached unusually high frequencies in ancient groups from Central-Eastern Asia, particularly those of Afanasevo, Scythian, Uighur and Ordos origin (2.8% to 4%). This is a strong indication that such groups carried significant European

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-60928544093313239082011-09-30T20:32:00.000-07:002011-10-26T07:34:00.953-07:00

This is a PCA plot showing the genetic relationship between various groups from across Europe, superimposed on a geographic map of the continent. It was posted recently at the 23andMe Research Findings blog. The results obviously show a high correlation with modern ethnic and political borders, which makes sense. I wonder if 23andMe is planning to update its ancestry tools by including something

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-57954616444456229892011-09-19T22:44:00.000-07:002011-09-20T07:51:44.798-07:00

As mentioned on this blog recently, there's a lot of action on different fronts to try and decipher the story of R1a1a. Many new SNPs are being discovered, and one of the most fascinating found to date is Z93. This marker appears to be a signal of a major split within R1a1a, with most samples from north of the Alps and Carpathians coming back Z93-. These include Brits, Germans, Poles, Finns,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-78170881659760393012011-09-05T19:10:00.000-07:002011-10-18T22:27:46.076-07:00

A student from the Grand Valley State University has just tested 17 remains from Neolithic and Bronze Age Ukraine for his Masters thesis, and found that six of the individuals carried East Eurasian-specific mtDNA C. This looks like a very important finding, because it backs up what I've been arguing for years on my blogs and elsewhere. Basically, it seems East Eurasian mtDNA lineages were fairly

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-35556370820782743992011-08-31T20:27:00.000-07:002011-09-20T00:14:19.864-07:00

It appears scientists have discovered a major admixture event in South Asia via two very different methodologies - Y-STR diversity and genome-wide LD patterns. Interestingly, the estimated ages of the event from both studies roughly coincidence with the assumed arrival of Indo-European speech in South Asia. However, it's important to note that it's not possible to accurately age Y-DNA haplogroups

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-65096237867071609382011-06-19T03:32:00.000-07:002011-06-20T21:57:21.759-07:00

Polish scientists and historians have teamed up to attempt the extraction of DNA from skeletal remains of direct descendants of Mieszko I, Poland's first king. One of the main goals is to substantiate the current consensus view that Mieszko, and his Piast dynasty, were of local Greater Polish origin, rather than imports from Denmark, which had been suggested in the past. However, DNA will also be

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-28326388142738385622011-06-15T05:42:00.000-07:002011-09-27T02:06:56.136-07:00

The Interpretome chromosome "painting" is the best tool of its kind at the moment. It's ultra user friendly, and has a range of advanced options that can be tweaked to dig deep into one's inter-continental ancestry. It's still a work in progress, so some of the features aren't very accurate, like the painting based on data from the HapMap 3. For the time being, I recommend sticking to the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-38171626208381178752011-06-02T20:18:00.001-07:002011-09-29T05:49:29.607-07:00

One of the best and simplest ways to look at the affinities of a population is to run basic MDS analysis, limiting the study groups to two or, at most, three. Indeed, this is also an excellent method of picking up and characterizing minority admixtures in individuals, even from closely related populations. In this exercise, I'm using the MDS utility within PLINK, with an IBS cluster merge

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-77378853528423176612011-05-21T22:12:00.000-07:002011-05-21T22:16:57.450-07:00

One of my more enthusiastic project members has come up with an idea of putting us all on a map, so we can compare our results in a more geographic context. Thanks NO1! You'll need a Gmail account to include your profile on the map. And please base the location on your ancestry (averaged out if you're mixed) rather than place of residence.View Eurogenes BGA Participant map in a larger map

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-37985246809106531682011-02-11T20:42:00.000-08:002011-10-27T10:12:22.100-07:00

There's a lot of action on different fronts in efforts to unlock the mysteries behind the origin and spread of R1a1a. Several new marker SNPs have been discovered, largely thanks to FTDNA's Walk Through The Y Project. One of these is L365, which defines R1a1a1i, a haplogroup mostly restricted to Northern Poland and Germany, where it apparently also shows highest diversity. So we now have three

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-55308446350792881542010-12-22T17:06:00.000-08:002010-12-23T03:48:45.415-08:00

The middle Holocene was a time when the climate warmed up across North Eurasia, triggering human migrations across great distances, like from Siberia to Europe. Signals of these movements have now been picked up by a new study looking at mtDNA haplogroups C and D.It appears that European branch C5c1 is more differentiated, as far as two of three sequenced Polish mtDNAs formed a separate branch (

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-69000076543791981772010-10-18T22:42:00.001-07:002010-10-20T05:07:36.985-07:00

Archaeologists studying the site of a planned highway in southeastern Poland have made a stunning discovery; a kurgan burial mound dating to the Copper Age. According to the Polish press, who seem unusually excited by this archaeological news item, the 6,000-year-old kurgan and its contents are a major find that might change the way we view European prehistory. Basically, it's older than any

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-7408715160231903562010-07-22T15:15:00.000-07:002010-10-31T02:14:41.509-07:00

Recently, a genetic study found evidence of North and East European specific chromosomal segments in Western China and Siberia (see North European admixture in East Asia). Here's another paper that confirms the presence of gene flow from the North European plain (?) to Asia. This time, sample sets from Kyrgyzstan and Nepal are sporting an ADMIXTURE component that peaks in the HapMap CEU (Utah

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-7162746314654029572010-06-03T19:46:00.000-07:002010-06-04T16:38:44.763-07:00

The PCAs below come from a new genome-wide study on Jewish ancestry, published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Basically, they show that there are two main groups of Jews - Middle Eastern and European/Syrian - and that European Jews have very little genetic input from Central and Eastern Europe. Indeed, it's interesting to note that Northern Slavs (Poles and Russians marked NE)

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-66626355248436887492010-05-22T07:31:00.000-07:002010-05-24T01:04:37.770-07:00

I'm not really sure what this abstract is referring to towards the end when it mentions the "second" haplotype family in Poland, but clearly not the N or P STR clusters within R1a1a7-M458 (see here). What this means, I suspect, is that Northern Poland has its own R1a1a cluster not associated with M458, and possibly part of an R1a1a haplogroup defined by another SNP. If anyone has a better idea

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-30819875169881429532010-04-29T04:26:00.000-07:002010-04-29T20:22:52.343-07:00

A new subclade of R1a1a7 has come out of the shadows during the past few weeks, recognized by the ISOGG as R1a1a7b. It's defined by the SNP L260 and apparently largely confined to Poland. Indeed, it's about as close as we're probably going to get to seeing a "Polish" haplogroup, because it also correlates very well with Peter Gwozdz's P STR type within R1a1a. That type seems to be linked to a

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-88692945666834924862010-04-27T20:46:00.000-07:002010-04-28T18:24:29.410-07:00

Of course, linguistically Hungarians are indeed Ugric. However, those who've been sampled to date in various genetic studies don't appear particularly Ugric in terms of genome-wide SNPs, Y-DNA or mtDNA markers. I was reminded of this recently by an intra-European PCA diagram featured in a Helsingin Sanomat article about a Finnish Genetic Atlas (see below). Hungarians are labelled Unkari, and

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-64638229870636219722010-04-22T22:21:00.000-07:002010-04-24T23:22:59.196-07:00

The scenario of an intense settlement of Eastern Europe and Central Asia by migrants from Central Europe following the Ice Age is appearing increasingly obvious as more detailed genetic data becomes available. The mitochondrial haplogroup U5 is a good candidate for tracing such movements, because it seems to have originated in the Mediterranean basin and then diversified within Europe. This is

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-80388201165351587062010-03-28T16:28:00.000-07:002010-04-03T07:30:40.035-07:00

The idea that there was a massive invasion of Central Europe by Kurgan horsemen from the Ukrainian steppes is a popular one, but I've never seen any solid evidence for it. Indeed, if we look at recent genetic and anthropological data, it seems that migrations within this area at the relevant time periods largely went the other way, from west to east.For example, the diversity of the Y-chromosome

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-50578855434007910082010-03-19T00:44:00.000-07:002010-03-20T03:36:31.095-07:00

We've seen plenty of material of late about the presence of Europeans deep in Asia during the Bronze and Iron Ages (for example, here). But why exactly were these people moving east with such intensity? According to this online paper from last year, they were prospectors...On the steppes, c. 2300 BC, systematic agro-pastoralism was spreading far to the east beyond the Ural River, probably in

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-77123104093547356432010-02-06T05:49:00.000-08:002010-06-04T04:15:31.959-07:00

Dienekes posted this facial morph not long ago as part of a put-a-country-to-a-face type guessing game. The image was designed by one of his readers using Polish football players, from the Champions League I suspect. A decent effort, but I think it appears too heavy for an average Pole, possibly because only a few faces were used and Celtic keeper Artur Boruc was one of them. Indeed, to me it

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-33071179529877055672009-11-27T18:47:00.000-08:002010-04-21T18:53:24.391-07:00

Just recently we saw the discovery of a new haplogroup called R1a1a7, which I boldly christened a Slavic genetic marker (see here), because it appeared to be linked to Slavic expansions around Europe. Now it seems this haplogroup also harbors an STR cluster which could be a signal of a secondary demographic event roughly within the boundaries of modern day Poland. Peter Gwozdz, the R1a enthusiast

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-54175150122660758462009-11-05T14:50:00.000-08:002010-12-14T23:34:37.110-08:00

Nature has just published a fascinating article on the discovery of a new type of R1a1a, defined by the M458 mutation. The data included in the report firmly puts present day Poland as the most likely place of origin for this haplogroup, known as R1a1a7. Here's a nice map...Peter A Underhill et al., Separating the post-Glacial coancestry of European and Asian Y chromosomes within haplogroup R1a,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-77410504242761961972009-11-04T05:25:00.000-08:002010-02-13T02:24:14.991-08:00

I was lucky enough to get my hands on these PCAs recently as part of an analysis of my own genome at a university earlier this year. They show most of the HGDP samples and how they relate to each other across various dimensions. I'm the white square labeled 1. First, here's the key...OK, in this view the Europeans are at the top, North and East Asians and Amerindians to the left, and Sub-Saharan

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-46528546080336214232009-09-27T04:50:00.000-07:002010-05-24T14:13:30.588-07:00

Here's a random pic of a mummified Scythian chieftain from a burial mound in Tuva, Siberia (500 BC). Apparently he carried R1a1 and an autosomal STR profile similar to modern Poles and Russians. For more info see here. Btw, I have no idea where this photo comes from, only what it shows, so I can't source it. If there's a problem with that, please let me know and I'll take it down.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-39843033548913027282009-09-05T15:37:00.000-07:002010-04-29T02:15:15.905-07:00

Even a small number of SNPs can betray bio-geographic ancestry at intra-European level, especially if dealing with very closely related groups. This paper proves the point, in a way, pointing out that Lithuanians, Poles and Russians show a lot of kinship even when only 960 cancer susceptibility SNPs are considered. Having said that, some of the other results here see Jews clustering with

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-39096454903934840652009-08-28T02:31:00.000-07:002009-08-29T00:03:09.293-07:00

A new article published in Molecular Medicine includes these plots showing genetic substructure within Northern Europe. As far as I know there are 5 Polish Americans included in the sample set labelled EEUR here...Chao Tian et al., European Population Genetic Substructure: Further Definition of Ancestry Informative Markers for Distinguishing Among Diverse European Ethnic Groups, Mol Med.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-84821389563703196752009-07-13T00:23:00.000-07:002009-07-26T21:17:26.653-07:00

As mentioned in my last post, I recently invested in a genome-wide scan at 23andme, mostly to learn more about my biogeographic ancestry. I thought the results were very accurate, and as expected for someone of Polish origin. But just to get another angle of view, I downloaded the raw data and sent it off for analysis to a university (mail me for details if you want in).Apparently, more

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-45458098921815296952009-06-30T03:01:00.000-07:002012-01-17T17:21:23.484-08:00

It seems every man and his proverbial dog are posting their genetic test results online these days, so I'll reveal a few details too after having my spit analysed by 23andme. As expected, I belong to Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1a, while my mtDNA haplogroup is H7. Based on 560,000 genome-wide SNPs, I'm estimated to be 100% European, with the HapMap cohorts used as reference groups (Utah Americans

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-39888264489738594892009-05-24T23:17:00.000-07:002010-12-16T07:26:22.915-08:00

This month saw the release of two fascinating papers on the genetics of Bronze and Iron Age south Siberians, by Bouakaze et al. and Keyser et al. Although published in different journals, both came from basically the same team of scientists. To cut a long story short, they showed that in these ancient times south Siberia was largely populated by people closely related to modern Europeans.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-89368963495547902442009-05-09T08:07:00.000-07:002010-04-29T02:10:09.403-07:00

The 45 Poles sampled in this PLoS ONE paper come from West Pomerania, which means they're largely descendant of migrants from what was eastern Poland before World War II, but is now part of Lithuania and Belarus. It seems they don't differ much from the Warsaw and Lodz cohorts I blogged about earlier, sitting just east of North-Central Europe. Here's the Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) plot from

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-37666679866557404142009-04-27T21:03:00.000-07:002010-04-29T02:08:50.850-07:00

Apparently there are over 1,000 Poles on this genome-wide admixture plot, courtesy of a gene disease association study into breast cancer. They're tightly packed in the lower left corner and largely buried under a mass of white Americans, but a few are visible if you look close enough (orange dots representing the PBCS sample set). There's nothing really dramatic to report from the Polish angle,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-34027419063683394412009-03-22T11:13:00.000-07:002009-05-02T01:14:27.025-07:00

There are lots of very detailed gene-disease association studies floating around in cyberspace these days, and occasionally they include some hidden morsels of population genetics data. Case in point, check out this inter-continental admixture model from the supplementary info of a lung cancer study by Hung et al.The samples come from the Czech Republic (Prague, Olomouc, Brno), Hungary (Borsod,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-42602772754357476452009-02-28T03:29:00.000-08:002010-04-29T02:06:28.905-07:00

Believe it or not, there are still people out there who read up on early 20th century anthropology and then wonder what "sub-race" or "type" they are based on the shape of their melon. They're all over the net, on various forums and blogs, discussing the finer points of Carleton Coon's 1939 typological bible, The Races of Europe (aka. TRoE). It's a depressing sight, but hopefully one that won't

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-77148320961278351572009-02-20T18:14:00.001-08:002009-03-18T05:13:22.562-07:00

It'll be interesting to see the detailed results of this project, and if there really is a genetic gap between Finns and other Northern Europeans. I always thought the problem on all those European substructure diagrams was a lack of samples from the Baltic nations, but maybe not?The more than 25,000 blood samples collected already make it possible to conduct various background studies. For

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-51660348691210424152009-02-14T20:45:00.000-08:002010-04-29T02:05:48.772-07:00

An article just published in the Genome Research journal takes a look at global human genetic variation using 443,434 SNP markers. The 3,845 individuals studied come from two well known databases; the Population Reference Sample (POPRES) and the HapMap project. One of the conclusions is that haplotype diversity in Europe increases significantly from north to south, and that Africans might be the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-23499092336502273772009-01-18T01:13:00.000-08:002009-03-18T05:05:21.036-07:00

The Zakład Genetyki Molekularnej i Sądowej, based in the northern Polish city of Bydgoszcz, is one of the leaders in genetics research in Europe. I couldn't find a precise English translation of its title anywhere, but I guess it would be something like "The Centre for Molecular and Court Genetics". It mainly focuses on Mitochondrial DNA, Y-Chromosome and Autosomal STR research. On the "

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-88113530734309891092009-01-05T05:43:00.000-08:002010-04-29T01:11:48.113-07:00

Recent work by Branicki et al. in Poland has revealed that people who carry the L374 allele have a significant chance of sporting black hair. In fact they are about seven times more likely to have such really dark hair than those who carry the 374F allele. Here are some figures...Ireland 1.3% vs. 98.7%Poland 2.3% vs. 97.7%Denmark 3% vs. 97%Germany 3.5% vs. 96.5%France 7% vs. 93%Japan 100% vs. 0%I

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-15364231164254843292008-12-09T06:19:00.000-08:002009-03-18T04:56:15.411-07:00

In the past we've seen studies coming out of India suggesting R1a1 originated in South Asia. However, this report concludes that it made its way down there from Central Asia as a result of Indo-European invasions. Please remember this is by far the most significant Y-DNA haplogroup in Poland, reaching levels as high as about 64% in southern parts of the country.Background: The genetic structure,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-62579030601801434952008-11-21T06:11:00.000-08:002011-10-27T02:45:28.281-07:00

Context is important when it comes to genetic affinity, and this is clearly illustrated by an article published in the European Journal of Human Genetics this week. For instance, on the intra-European principal component analysis (PCA) featured in this paper, Poles basically sit between Dresden and Moscow, but mixing more with the latter. However, when an African and two Asian populations are

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-31929958355845745292008-11-19T20:43:00.000-08:002010-04-29T03:46:22.612-07:00

Paternal DNA extracted from three 4,600 year old Corded Ware skeletons from a site in Eulau, Germany, has been matched to a modern sample from Poland. The burial ground has also thrown up some unexpected maternal lineages, showing affinity to populations as far away as Tajikistan. The Y-chromosome haplogroup from the three related males turned out to be R1a via SNP analysis (and likely R1a1). Of

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191565439230824899.post-15823566118052126862008-11-12T22:34:00.000-08:002010-04-29T03:40:52.586-07:00

This year saw the release of a couple of very interesting articles on genetic substructure in Europe, one by Oscar Lao and the other by John Novembre. Both were based on studies that used hundreds of thousands of genome-wide markers, and scores of samples from all over the continent. The findings were that the genetic map of Europe was very similar to the geographic one, with most samples

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0